Fall of Icarus (61 page)

“Your father?
 
You mean Doctor Solomon,” Yen replied.
 
“Growing a science experiment in a test tube hardly makes him a father.”

For the first time, Yen noticed anger on Achilles’ face.
 
“I was born of flesh and blood, old man!
 
And Doctor Solomon
is
my father.
 
He did more for me than my biological father ever could!”

Yen brought his knees up underneath himself.
 
Behind him, he let a blue tendril begin to manifest in his hand.
 
“You’re a genetic freak, Achilles.
 
How much do you want to bet that you weren’t the first psychic the good doctor tried to create?
 
And what do you think he did with all the others?”

To Yen’s surprise, Achilles laughed.
 
The Terran’s emotions rolled unabated from one end of the spectrum to the other, the man hardly in control of his own bizarre mood swings.
 
Yen stared at Achilles with a hint of fear creeping up his spine.
 
Mental instability was a dangerous trait for a psychic.
 
If he wanted to defeat the Terran, Yen would have to strike quickly.

“Of course there were others,” Achilles replied.
 
“And every one of them was found to be unworthy of my father’s praise.
 
Only I was powerful enough to survive!”

Yen wrapped his fingers around the tendril as it grew in length.
 
“And let me guess: if I want to get to your father, I’ll have to go through you?”

“Close, but wrong.
 
Whether or not you want to get to my father, you’ll never get through me alive!”

“We’ll see about that,” Yen replied coldly as he brought his hand around from his back.
 
The blue tendril elongated as it flashed outward, striking out like a whip.
 
The air cracked as though from a lightning strike, as the whip struck the hard stone slabs near the pond.
 
Achilles, however, was no longer standing on the stones.
 
Looking quickly left and right, he found the Terran standing a dozen feet away, laughing maniacally.

“Your thoughts are imprinted in the front of your mind for all to see.
 
I knew you were going to attack even before you did!”

Growling, Yen lashed out again and again with the psychic whip, its glowing blue length lighting up the area around the two warriors.
 
Every time Yen struck, Achilles had already moved out of the way, his body little more than a blur as he constantly shifted his position just out of the way of the assault.

Retracting the whip, Yen made the tendril rigid like a spear.
 
Leaping to his feet, he charged Achilles.
 
Lunging forward, he drove the spear directly at Achilles’ heart.
 
This time, the Terran didn’t dodge.
 
Instead, quicker than Yen could follow, he reached out and grabbed the end of the tendril before it reached its mark.

“You are going to have to do much better than that,” Achilles mocked.
 
A wave of psychic energy rolled down the length of the spear and passed into Yen’s arm.
 
His entire body felt on fire as the energy rolled through his nervous system.
 
His head rocked back in pain and a scream passed his lips.
 
For the second time, Yen was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards.
 
Soaring through the air, Yen collapsed into the shallow, rectangular pool.
 
The frigid waters enveloped him and Yen quickly sat upright and coughed up the cold water.
 
Wiping his dripping hair from his eyes, Yen looked to the confident Achilles.

Infuriated, Yen felt his blood burn with hatred as he looked at the Terran.
 
Caught unaware once again, Yen had been tossed aside; humiliated by this Terran freak.
 
Coughing, Yen’s gaze boiled with a deep seeded rage.
 
“What are you?” he yelled in disbelief.
 
“What do you want of me?”

“What I am is not important,” Achilles chuckled softly.
 
“You’re asking all the wrong questions.
 
If you want to know about me, you should know who I
was
, not who I
am
.”
 
Achilles’ eyes flared with emotion as dormant memories rolled through his mind.
 
“I was not always my father’s son.
 
Once, long ago, I was the son of another man,
a merchant on a planet near
the Demilitarized Zone.”

Achilles jaw tightened as he remembered painful memories.
 
“I had a mother once, too.
 
She was kind and beautiful.
 
But she died.
 
They both died.
 
They were killed by your people
: mercenaries and soldiers with nothing better to do than annihilate an innocent merchant town.
 
My biological parents did nothing wrong, but they were slaughtered by your kind.”

“You want me to feel sympathy for you?” Yen retorted.
 
His goal, Doctor Solomon, was only a few hundred feet away.
 
Yet instead of extracting his revenge, he was busy being thwarted time and time again by the doctor’s science experiment.
 
“How many innocent civilians have been killed on the Alliance worlds?
 
How about the millions that died during the Empire’s Manifest Destiny Directive?
 
Who gives a damn if your parents died?
 
The best thing that could have happened is if you had died with them.
 
And if you stay in my way, I’ll make that a reality!”

“With what?” Achilles replied, his calm demeanor reasserting itself.
 
The emotion was now vacant in his voice.
 
He spoke as though the conversation about his parents never happened seconds before.
 
“Will you make another whip for me?
 
Your biggest failure, Yen Xiao, is that you are too stuck in the physical world.
 
You have vast, untapped potential, but you waste it on these pathetic whips and spears.
 
People like you and me could rule the universe, if only you had the mind to master your powers.
 
Instead, you find yourself rooted in what you can see and touch.”
 

“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” Yen growled.

“Oh, but I do,” Achilles replied.
 
“Your mind is an open book to me.
 
I can see the recesses of your subconscious where you push your true powers out of fear.
 
You don’t believe me?
 
Then think about all the times you have been a dominant power in battle.
 
How many times have you defeated an enemy because of your psychic strength?
 
And yet
you are so easily defeated by me
.
 
It’s pathetic.
 
I thought you would be a much better challenge, especially after my father mentioned you by name.
 
But if this is all you can do, I hardly see a reason to keep you alive.”

As Achilles walked forward, mirror images of him began to separate from the original.
 
First ten, then twenty duplicates of Achilles strode forward, each moving independently of the others.
 
Glancing back and forth, Yen felt a stab of fear in his chest.
 
He knew that this was only happening in his mind, but try as he might he was unable to break free of the illusion.
 
Standing in the water, Yen formed a pair of psychic whips, one in each hand, and began striking the closest of the images.

One by one, the false images faded from view under Yen’s assault.
 
Disrupted by the new psychic power, they wavered and disappeared.
 
For every one destroyed, however, another seemed to materialize before him.
 
Staggering backward, Yen sloshed through the pond as he moved closer to the monument at the far end.
 
The images closed in, growing progressively closer despite Yen’s fevered attempts to destroy them.
 
He had no idea what these images would be capable of should they reach him, but he had no intention of finding out.

“Old fool,” a voice whispered from behind him, alerting Yen to the danger moments before a pair of open palms struck him in his lower back.

An explosion of pain rocked Yen’s body as he was lifted effortlessly into the air.
 
Suspended and paralyzed, Yen was turned slowly around until he faced the darkly smiling Achilles, who stood hovering above the lake’s surface, his hand upraised as he lazily spun Yen in circles.

“I had thought to keep you around, so that we might learn from one another,” Achilles said angrily.
 
“But I realize now that there is nothing that I could possibly learn from you that I do not already know.
 
You have no intrinsic value to me.
 
You’re nothing more than my puppet.
 
But like all toys, I’vve grown weary of playing with you.
 
I’m no longer a child, so I must discard my childish things.
 
Goodbye, Yen Xiao.”

Achilles’ outstretched hand closed into a fist and Yen felt his throat constrict.
 
Though he struggled for air, Yen was helpless to stop the Terran from choking the life from his body.
 
Instead, Yen could only glare in rage as he struggled to draw breath.

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

           
Through the hole in the wall, Keryn and Adam slipped into the cool desert night.
 
They slid along the buildings, trying to leave as little a silhouette as possible in the bright moonlight.
 
Aside from the occasional gunfire, the town had taken on an eerie silence.
 
Taking a deep breath, Keryn hoped that the tentative ceasefire that had existed when Adam was guarding the window to their building would hold for a while longer.
 
As long as the townsfolk continued to believe that a deadly gunman was waiting just inside the room, they would be hesitant to approach the building.
 
Keryn hoped that diversion would buy them enough time to make it out of the town’s limits before they realized the dupe.
 
The thought of running like a madwoman toward the landing field with an entire armed town in pursuit did not appeal to her.

           
Staying low, the pair moved from box to barrel, constantly scanning the area ahead as they moved from one cover to another.
 
Passing alleyways that led back to the main thoroughfare through town, they paused and peered toward the lamp lit main street.
 
Unlike the shadowy darkness through which they moved, the setting sun had automatically activated the flickering lanterns that illuminated the two main roads through town.
 
As Keryn’s eyes moved up the cliff face behind town, she could see similar lanterns lighting the length of the switchback trail.
 
Craning her neck, the pinpricks of lantern light stretched the entire height of the plateau’s face before disappearing at the crest of the plateau’s top.

           
From within the glowing pools of light, Keryn could see townsfolk moving.
 
They moved with an air of caution, though their awkward graces as they tried to slip stealthily within the shadows made it apparent that they learned their techniques more from console videos and less from actual soldier training.
 
Frowning, Keryn felt pity for the simple citizens of the town.
 
Their vision clouded by the large sums of money that Cardax had poured into their meager lives, they were willing to toss aside their morals and self-respect just to protect their new way of life.
 
They were willing to die for a smuggler about which they knew next to nothing.
 
Would they be so willing to die for him if they knew that Cardax had sold out the Alliance?
 
Keryn wondered if they would so willingly accept the Oterian’s money if they knew just how much he had soaked it in blood beforehand.

           
With a nudge from Adam, she slipped from behind her crate and passed the exposed alleyway.
 
Though the town was relatively long, the end quickly approached.
 
From the end of town, the desert opened up, leaving little protective concealment.
 
The pair would have to move quickly but carefully to avoid detection.
 
Looking up, Keryn both admired the myriad of stars while simultaneously feeling disappointed that there weren’t any clouds hanging in the sky.
 
The large disk of the moon stole away many of the shadows that they could have used to move undetected.
 
Instead, the silvery illumination would leave them exposed while they ran away.
 
Still, she had seen the unimpressive marksmanship of the townsfolk.
 
Once they made their break from the town, she doubted any of the pursuing gunfire would even come close to them.